Bird deaths prompt agency to request no use of feeders

Hundreds of collared doves have died, and feeders are suspected as playing a role in spreading the cause.

By JON WILSON

© St. Petersburg Times,
published June 13, 2001

ST. PETERSBURG -- A state wildlife agency wants residents to stop feeding birds until scientists learn what is killing doves in St. Petersburg neighborhoods.

"We are asking people to take down their bird feeders at least until we find out what's going on," said Henry Cabbage, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

"It's possible that the feeders somehow figure in as a place where something is being exchanged from bird to bird," Cabbage said.

"We have sent off tissue samples to see if we are dealing with a toxin or whether we're dealing with some kind of biological agent or exactly what."

Since April, hundreds of Eurasian collared doves have died, officials say. Virtually all the reports have come from St. Petersburg, and there appears to be no outbreak of deaths elsewhere in the state, said Nancy Douglass, a conservation commission biologist stationed in Lakeland.

"We're anxious to know whether other species are involved," Douglass said. "We've had a few incidental reports (of other species dying). We want to encourage people to keep their eyes open."

Asking people to stop feeding doesn't necessarily mean birdseed is a suspected culprit, Douglass said.

"It could be the food, but if it's a contagious infection, anything you do to concentrate birds in the same spot will speed up the spread of the disease. It's like drinking out of the same glass," she said.

At present, the conservation commission does not need more birds to test, Douglass said. But residents are encouraged to continue reporting deaths. The number to call is (863) 648-3203.

Or deaths can be reported to a Web site: www.wld.fwc.state.fl.us/bird/.

Kathy Durham, a Crescent Heights resident, said she has found at least two dozen dead doves since late April.

"It had been one a week, but over the last couple of weeks, it's been three or four (per week)," Durham said.

Collared doves are similar to ring-necked turtle doves and are often mistaken for them. But collared doves are larger and considerably paler in color, said the Audubon Society's Rich Paul, manager of the Florida Coastal Islands Sanctuaries.

Collared doves are thought to have escaped from captivity in the Bahamas during the 1970s, Paul said. They were first seen in the Florida Keys in the early 1980s, and from there moved rapidly up the peninsula, taking advantage of feeders in urban and suburban areas, he said.

One of the problems associated with an introduced species, such as the collared dove, is that the species is especially vulnerable to local parasites or bacteria that might not affect native birds, Paul said.

The wildlife conservation commission is the agency fielding most of the reports. But the departments of health and agriculture also are interested in the deaths, Douglass said.

Bird tissue is being examined at the University of Florida's wildlife disease laboratory, she said. The Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study in Athens also has been notified.

So far, a process of elimination has ruled out several possibilities, trichomoniasis, avian pox and salmonella among them, officials say.

Wildlife scientists have been on the lookout for West Nile virus, which infected birds, humans and horses in the northeastern United States two years ago. But it is not believed to have reached Florida and to date is not considered a suspect in the dove deaths.

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